Michael Bay's sorry about 'Armageddon'

Editor-at-large here at Movie Pilot. Nerd out with me on Twitter, comrades: @alishagrauso

So last week, it looked like a Hollywood smack-down was about to happen between directors (I use that term loosely in one of these cases) and , when the former made a remark about movies that were ripping off Transformers (but didn't name names) and the latter slammed the Hasbro movies for being nothing more than two-hour-long car commecials.

But you guys, Bay explains, no worries! He and del Toro are totes besties, as he explains on his website via The Playlist:

I was talking about another movie, at another studio that will remain nameless, while I spoke at CinemaCon in Vegas this Monday. I love how reporters put false words in people's mouths without doing their proper research. Well 'cause of that sloppy reporting, I thought Guillermo was mad at me, and he thought I was mad at him. We both exchanged calls today and realized nobody was mad at anybody except we were both mad at that reporter!

So let me get this straight, Bay. You passive-aggressively try to start stuff by throwing shade at other directors, but you're not brave enough to directly namedrop, then when one of those directors calls you out, you immediately backpedal because, oops, you forgot about the internet, and things you say have a way of making it back to the person in question. Nicely done.

And, bizarrely, Bay also felt the need to go a step further and inexplicably apologize for Armageddon, which is one of the only palatable movies he's made, back in the halcyon days before he started reaping the childhood of the 80s for blatant rip-offs (Oh, sorry, "remakes") upon which to build his shiny, car-shilling empire. As he told the Miami Herald:

I will apologize for 'Armageddon,' because we had to do the whole movie in 16 weeks. It was a massive undertaking. That was not fair to the movie. I would redo the entire third act if I could. But the studio literally took the movie away from us. It was terrible. My visual effects supervisor had a nervous breakdown, so I had to be in charge of that. I called James Cameron and asked 'What do you do when you're doing all the effects yourself?' But the movie did fine.

Why was it "terrible"? Were there not enough explosions? Was 's tear-jerking death not enough for you? What kind of monster are you?

But there is hope for fans who hope Bay will take a breather from pillaging beloved franchises for profit, according to his conversation with the New York Times:

I want to chill out for a little bit. I think. Smell the flowers a little bit. I wish I would read more. I used to be a huge reader. It’s just — life gets too busy.

Yes. YES, do that. Go read a book. Step away from the camera for a while and think about what you've done.